Newtown. Brookfield meet again with title on the line

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT), Ed Flink STAFF WRITER

Published 1:00 am, Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Mind games.

Newtown High football coach Steve George and his Brookfield counterpart
Rich Angarano
have been challenging their players mentally as well as physically in preparation for the 13th annual South-West Conference football championship game tonight at Bunnell High in Stratford.

The reason? This is a rematch of a supposed showdown in which Newtown torched previously unbeaten Brookfield 34-3 only 13 days ago. It snapped the Bobcats' 12-game winning streak, which began after last season's 34-7 loss to Newtown.

For George, the object was to get the Nighthawks (9-1) to forget how easy that Week 8 victory was. For Angarano, the idea was to convince the Bobcats (8-1) the game was a fluke.

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Newtown senior
Jake DeVellis
threw for 237 yards and three touchdowns while the Nighthawks defense produced four takeaways during that dominant performance.

"I know the score is indicative of that but we're concerned about some of the changes that they're going to make so we'll be ready for them," George said. "A lot of those points were off turnovers. You teach turnovers but you don't always get them. They happened to fall our way that game.

"If you look at the statistics of the game other than turnovers it was a close game. I have been telling the kids all week that they have not won anything yet. They're a very good team. Thursday is a different day and a different game in different weather. Who knows?"

George's message apparently has been received.

"I don't know if it was by any means easy," DeVellis said of the earlier meeting. "I think our preparation was definitely good. We were ready for it, no doubt, and we took every play like it was our last. We were hungry."

Angarano has also put a spin on the regular-season game in an effort to show his players that it wasn't a typical performance.

"I wouldn't call it an aberration. I would call it a game that got away from us fast. But we were out of character to say the least by the number of mistakes that we did make and the short field that we did present them with," Angarano said.

"However, I have to give kudos to Newtown because a lot of times teams create things that happen on a football field and they created a lot of things that happened by some of their play. They played an excellent scheme on defense."

Indeed, the Nighthawks showed why their defense is the stingiest in the South-West Conference, having allowed only 63 points while winning nine consecutive league games. Brookfield averages almost 34 ppg but failed to reach the end zone against Newtown.

Junior quarterback
Jordan Burandt
had only 128 passing yards and suffered two interceptions while All-State candidate
Scott Benzing
was held to six receptions for just 47 yards.

Brookfield's defense also needs to play better than it did in the previous game, when it left shifty senior
Kurt Nacewicz
alone on the second play from scrimmage. He scored on a 75-yard catch and run to ignite the rout.

It will need to put more pressure on DeVellis, who has completed 123 of 193 passes (63.7 percent) for 1,670 yards with 22 touchdowns and only five interceptions this season. Nacewicz, who has scored 14 touchdowns, is a threat both as a receiver and a running back.

Playing again so soon has its benefits, especially for the winner.

"We prepared for them only two weeks ago so it's pretty much the same stuff," DeVellis said.

Brookfield played its way to the final for the third time in five years by surviving a schedule that was tougher than the Nighthawks' schedule. It beat several respected opponents, including two-time defending SWC champion Bunnell and perennial contender Masuk.

"We played very well against Bunnell and we played very well against Masuk and those are two premiere teams in our league and so is Newtown," Angarano said. "Everybody kept asking me, 'Who has Newtown played?' The bottom line is we don't make the schedule. We just play the games and take care of what we have to take care of and hopefully get to where we're going."

The Nighthawks, who will be appearing in the league final for the first time in 11 years, learned a lot about themselves by beating Brookfield. DeVellis believes Newtown probably played its best overall game of the season that night.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was," he said. "There were people saying we didn't play anybody. In the beginning they were really doubting us. But I think that game really solidified us and gave us confidence that we could play with those good teams."